


Try

by pseudofaux



Series: Try [1]
Category: Samurai Love Ballad: PARTY, 天下統一恋の乱 | Sakura Amidst Chaos | Samurai Love Ballad (Visual Novel)
Genre: "it's been eighty-four years" (generally not actually), F/M, Feelz, First Time, POV Original Female Character, consensual drugging (with sedative), everyone from Iga needs counseling, everyone from Kai needs counseling, no p in v (did I seriously just type that?), plum bum (mmm), sadz, sexually with it female character, spoilers for Shingen's route, sweetz, time skip, won't someone think of the ninja?!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-19
Updated: 2017-11-19
Packaged: 2019-02-04 09:36:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,187
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12768180
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pseudofaux/pseuds/pseudofaux
Summary: She's watched and worked with Kansuke. Before he leaves, she wants to be with him.(SPOILERS for Shingen's route in SLBP.)





	Try

**Author's Note:**

> I chose to disregard a few things and leave off the exhaustive OC backstory that sometimes clogs my efforts. So here, Meiri is a servant to the Takeda, treated well and trusted. I like to think she stumbled upon Kansuke multiple times and they struck up a companionable and private friendship. She has been attracted to him all along, but in a quiet, wouldn't-it-be-nice kind of way, not a good-golly-we-gotta-get-our-jollies kind of way. Perhaps until just the moment this starts. 
> 
> One last time: SPOILERS for Shingen's route! You deserve to read that first hand (I mean that in the best way).

Soundless moonlight laid softness and silver over everything it touched.

But in front of me, standing out of the moon’s reach, was Kansuke, plum color all about him, fresh and vivid. His clothes. His hair, a purple sheen muted but persistent in the dimness. His eyes, the color of a beautiful bruise and the sight of him making me ache just as much.

I was naked and kneeling on the floor of my room. Only a few hours before, I had asked him to come to me tonight. He might refuse what I planned to ask of him, but I knew he would not mock me. The safety of that, the knowing that his answer would be true, yes or no, bolstered me. Time was dwindling, which bolstered me in another way.

My knees ached. I kept myself on them because it felt vital to be respectful in this effort, and not to pressure him.

“Thank you for coming. I want to be with you tonight,” I said firmly, quietly.

His face remained passive. I knew he had heard me, so this silence was for me to fill.

“I feel like you have been hinting that you are leaving, and that you think it is less likely than usual that you will come back. If you didn’t, I would miss you. I would _mourn_. I don’t want to do nothing with that feeling. I want to be with you before you leave. I want to comfort you in whatever way I can. That would comfort me.”

My voice sounded surer than I expected it to, the words clear. As I was speaking I realized the trueness of the little speech. I had known those feelings for some time, but to put them into the air made them real.

Kansuke tilted his head. His face remained just shy of austere. And still he said nothing.

So I asked, “Can I?”

After a beat, he nodded. Relief fluttered behind my ribs. Quietly he said, “I suppose you can try,” and somehow he made it sound like an indulgence without making me feel foolish.

“Thank you,” I said, truly grateful. He matched my smile with a small one of his own, and I stood up to reach for his face.

“What do you want?” I asked.

He paused and then looked perplexed. It didn’t suit him at all, and it made me laugh. Briefly, so quickly I wouldn’t have caught had I not been looking right at him, I saw a flash of embarrassment, his face uncomfortable.

“Forgive me,” I begged on a giggle, trying to look serious. It would be hard to tell if he did, because of course his face was already normal—for him—again. “You’re always so assured. I was just surprised. The expression you made was endearing.”

His face went calm.

“May I join you in your bed?” He asked quietly. He might have been blushing. Out of the moonlight it was too dim to be sure. But I knew his voice, soft and low, and my body knew it, too.

“I suppose you can try,” I said airily. But I couldn’t keep the big smile off my face, and I nodded happily, returning to the comfort of my futon.

Kansuke removed his clothes… perfunctorily, seems the only correct description. But he deftness of his movements and the way he folded things as he removed them were almost as interesting to me as the parts of his body he was revealing.

Not quite, though.

That beautiful skin… What color was it, exactly? I blushed at my silly thoughts and the bold way he was exposing his body, but kept my eyes on him.

He was compact and strong. Scars latticed his torso, old scars, faded a little paler than the rest of him. His skin was stretched over his frame. He wasn’t gaunt, but his body seemed somehow sparse despite his grace and the strength I knew he possessed. I was seized by the desire to go make him a snack, feed him something, nourish him in some way. But there wasn’t time for that. We would have to satisfy emotional needs instead. Mine, at least. I hoped he had them, too, and wasn’t just going along with this for me.

His hips were narrow. Kansuke’s entire body was lean, his limbs gangly without his clothes to pad his appearance. But his movements were fluid. He reminded me of a stag, somehow: long limbed but stately.

He did not turn around as he removed his fundoshi. Our eyes met and then mine dropped to the new skin on display and I felt them widen. I suppose I should have _known_ given the deep baritone of his voice. I remembered times when he had whispered to me in that voice and bit my lip to keep a greedy whimper from disturbing the curious, beautiful quiet of this moment.

When he was naked and his clothes were neatly settled, he moved to the bedding and slipped beneath the cover. The blanket made the barest rustle. How had he managed that?

A thought for another time, because suddenly I could feel skin on my own. Not as warm as I expected, not quite cool either. It was the closest our bodies had ever been to one another, and I leaned a bit forward and breathed through my nose, trying to catch the smell of him on the sly. I’d been wondering for weeks.

“No good,” he smiled down at me, that small indulgent quirk of his mouth. “We mask our scents.”

I couldn’t help my pout at that. But then his arms went around me, and the disappointment was replaced by happiness that made my body prickle with goosebumps. He pulled me closer with those arms and I put my own around him.

Kansuke’s skin was only subtly warm. It was like his entire physiology was devoted to being unnoticed. It was surprisingly smooth, too, the fine hairs on his arms so unlike those I had seen on other men, and the skin itself perfectly supple despite the way I thought he looked so thin. Touching his back and shoulders was a bit like skimming my fingers over water.

“May I kiss you?” I asked. He nodded immediately, just once. As I smiled and closed my eyes, bringing my mouth to his, he met me halfway.

 _Oh_ , his mouth was warm. His kiss was so warm and smooth and strong. The pleasure of the feel of him had me seeking more, pushing his head gently to mine as I ran my fingers up the back of his scalp. The hairs there were slippery silk, a luxury that had been hidden in plain sight as long as I’d known him. I groaned, and Kansuke took my lower lip in his teeth and slowly, slowly, slowly moved it between them. When he freed me I whined for more, licking at the air until I found his mouth again.

He had no scent, but his taste was surprisingly distinctive. Like mint and apple. Like the secret delicacy he was.

When I broke our kisses to breathe, his eyes were closed and his tongue moved over a corner of his lips. He was smiling. I smiled, too.

I waited for him to open his eyes, but he stayed as he was, the smile teasing his lips and teasing me, too. I pulled my fingers gently along the back of his head.

“Kansuke,” I said softly, “Will you please look at me?”

He opened his eyes immediately, and his expression quickly shifted to something that hinted at amusement.

“I know what you look like,” he said. “I have looked at you very often.”

That whisper made me throb for him.

“I want to know what you feel like, since I have not had the same opportunity to touch you.”

At that I could only gasp, a tiny sound in the quiet of the room.

“I want that, too,” I whispered fiercely, pressing my fingers against the back of his head for emphasis. “Please.”

Kansuke’s hand trailed to my arm and then moved down. The pressure of his fingers was hard to detect in places, leaving gaps in the drag of his path to my hand. When he got there, he threaded his fingers through mine and brought the hand between us.

He was looking at me very solemnly. He kept our eye contact as he kissed my little finger. And then he swept his tongue, wet and so much hotter than his skin, over the digit. My lips were trembling and I wanted to put my head back and moan, shut out everything but that feeling... but his eyes held mine. So I shuddered, and my eyelids threatened to shut, but they did not. They could not.

“I have been taught that the tongue is more sensitive than the fingertips,” said the man in my arms. His voice was level, but breathy in a delightful way.

I acknowledged this with a short hum because I couldn’t manage much more than that. Kansuke closed his mouth to kiss the skin of my finger again, then moved up the side of my hand. His tongue slid toward my wrist. The heat of his mouth was enough that the moisture he left on my skin evaporated before it could cool. This was heat he could not hide: it couldn’t be masked like his scent or meditated into coolness like his skin. The fire of his soul would burn until his life ended. I prayed, briefly and desperately, that such a time would be long away from the moment we were in.

Then he dipped his tongue into the inside of my elbow and I could think of nothing but getting away from that sudden sensation. My body jerked.

“Ticklish,” I offered with embarrassment as I tried to recovered my sense, clutching myself. “Sorry.” That got me one of his barely-perceptible smiles.

“I will not tickle you. May I do it again?” he asked politely.  

“Er... I’m very ticklish there.”

“But if I promise you that I will not linger?”

I was _very_ ticklish, so my desire to keep the sensitive skin inside my arm safe warred with my wish to give him what he asked for. After a moment of looking into his eyes, I finally said “Yes,” hesitant but turned on. He seemed to think the intention was important, and he had said that what he wanted was to know what I felt like. I would try.

Suddenly my wrist and bicep were being held, and his tongue snaked out to return to where I’d interrupted him. I gasped at the contact and felt myself stiffening and pulling back the arm to protect it on reflex. He held firm.  

It was only a second or two before he moved further up the inside of my arm. I was panting. His work was making me tense and excited. And squirmy. I wasn’t sure if this promised similar attention to my sex or not, but even this… even this was thrilling.

He traced my shoulder, my clavicle, and my throat with his tongue, the sweep of his attention always hot on my skin, always fading quickly. The heat in me, on the other hand, grew as he continued this careful exploration with his tongue. I was quivery and desperate by the time he reached the top of my neck. Kansuke licked the curve of my jaw, moving seamlessly along my skin as I panted.

He stopped to press a gentle kiss to my cheek. And then he licked the inner curve of my ear, and my toes curled, and I shut my eyes so tightly I saw colors in the blackness, somehow.

Kansuke slid to the side, laying down behind me. As we lay on our sides I could feel him pressing into my back, and the thrill of it made me feel so good I giggled again.

“What is funny?” he asked, a little curious, perhaps a little sour.

“I’m happy,” I told him honestly, rolling my hips back so my bottom rubbed against his length. It didn’t feel wicked. Well, not too wicked. Mostly it felt like just the right thing to do. “I’m happy to be here with you.” I said quietly.

Kansuke made no reply, but he pressed forward against me and I sighed, content as I had told him I was. I reached back for him, my fingers landing on his hip. Those fingers begged to touch the decadent smoothness of his skin, so I did. I rubbed circles on his hip as I moved myself back against him. I relished his increasing firmness and made quiet noises as my own arousal rose with his.

His hand was on my own hip, then, and he traced a spiral with one finger before moving to the front of my body.

“You feel soft. Good,” he murmured. “Now I know.” His voice was low and his words were sweet. I whimpered.

His hand went forward, down, gentle presses as he massaged his way to where I desperately wanted him to be.

“You’re making me feel good,” I said shakily, pressing his hip with my fingers. “And you feel good to me, too. Your skin is so smooth. I wish I had touched you before now.”

Kansuke _hmph_ ed, and I think he might have blushed. There was a little flare of heat across the skin of his arm. His fingers went lower still.

“I mean it,” I said in a small voice. I pushed myself forward toward his hand. “Feel. You’ll see.”

He did. I was warm and slick for him. The base of his palm cupped my mound and then one finger pressed slightly, grazing my slit and tracing up. I breathed in noisily and told myself to be patient. Something about the way he was touching me now, and had before, made me suspect that he had studied but not been with a woman. Whether that was true or not, what I wanted most of all was to be with him in whatever way he would allow. And whatever way he would take. Kansuke had never struck me as the type of person to leave something undone.

The pad of one of his fingers grazed my clit, and I shuddered against him with a little cry. His touch stopped immediately.

“Did you make that sound because it was good or bad?” Kansuke asked at my ear, urgency apparent.

“Good,” I breathed. “Good. I promise I will tell you if you hurt me. But it feels very good when you touch me like that.”

He made a meditative sound and did it again, body tense as though he expected me to complain. After that he explored gently, occasionally giving me time to recover from my shudders or squeals. I believe between passes he rubbed his fingers together, slick with what he found. And he continued to make those sweeps up to my clit and make me whine.

I could feel the tip of him at the small of my back. Warm. Rigid. So very smooth. I wanted to feel it. For a few moments I was able to clench my fist but before long, my greedy hand reached back for him.

As my fingers began to encircle his length, Kansuke groaned, sounding more pained than pleasured. So I stopped.

“Is this alright with you?” I asked, drawing my hand back to hover above him. I liked his body curved around my back but just then I wish I had been facing him, able to check in with his eyes.

“I. Have not… ever...” he trailed off. His voice was low.

“That’s fine,” I stressed, moving my fingers back to the safety of his hip, pressing for reassurance. “I know what to do. And I want you give you pleasure if that’s okay. May I please try?”

_say yes say yes say yes, **please** say yes_

He kissed the back of my head and murmured his agreement into my hair. And then that brave man pushed himself up into my hand. I had to gasp; this part of him was even smoother, warm silk gliding effortlessly in my grasp. I could feel the bump of his pulse in one spot. I was surprised that running my hand over a man could be so pleasurable for _me_.

Kansuke cleared his throat. “I would like to—”

“Whatever it is, yes,” I interrupted. He was rolling my clit between his thumb and forefinger, not quite too hard or quite too fast… precisely right to build something beautiful. His huff of laughter into my hair made me smile. “Just please don’t stop what you are doing right now,” I begged. My hips were rocking up toward his touch and back toward his arousal.

Kansuke’s other arm slid under my neck. I nuzzled him as his hand touched just beneath my small breasts. Whenever I moved the underside of them brushed his hand. It was tantalizing.

He began to apply more pressure when he swept his fingers along my labia, notching into my entrance but not pressing inside. When he did it I hissed and squeezed him, and felt his breath behind my ear, warm and fast. I was as turned on by this lack of his usual calm as I was by what he was doing to my body.

Finally, finally, he held his finger in place instead of moving it up.

“Can I…?” His whisper was sweet, respectful, from a dry throat. It made my assent a moan.

The slide of his finger into my body was soothing and exhilarating all at once, like being tossed into the air and knowing you’d be safely caught. I breathed out a surprised, pleased sound at the wonder of it, and heard his quiet laugh again.

I squeezed him. He stopped laughing.

“What,” I asked between slides of his finger into my body, “can I do to make you feel good?”

“Exactly what you’re doing,” he said, calm and kind. He was so sweet. Did anyone know how sweet he was?

For a moment we did just that, caressing one another steadily. But then he started tapping my clit with his thumb at double the rhythm of his finger pushing into my body. Then faster.

“Ka-Kansuke!”

With expert pressure he turned the tension of my body into fizzy, gasping pleasure. I could feel the muscles within me clenching at his finger, rippling faster than I could control. My legs started shaking.

I tried his name again but only managed to wail the first syllable. It was so loud I brought my free hand to my mouth. It was happening so fast, my body was ready but my mind wasn’t—I tried to make myself stop clamping down around him but couldn’t—couldn’t stop gasping—couldn’t stop _feeling_ — every little press of his thumb edging me further into this tense single-minded fight to keep my wits—and—then

 _Ah_.

I lost them anyway. But they came back to me quickly, my skin prickling with warmth and comfort. Pleasure. Heavy-lidded bliss.

I fell asleep.

I woke before long; my hand was still behind me, around him, and his fingers had not moved. I nuzzled his arm again, blearily sated. I felt a delayed flutter of my muscles around his fingers within me. And at that moment if a god had offered me the chance to stay like this forever, I would have taken it.

Kansuke pressed a kiss against the back of my ear. It made me feel like my skin was a million tiny flowers suddenly going from bud to bloom.

I squeezed him in my hand again, and moved up and down his length. He shuddered, and I did, too.

“I want to make you come,” I whispered, slowing down, squeezing gently once more at the base of him.

“I want to make you come again,” he said.

Deep in my belly I felt a throb of lust so strong I winced.

“Together?” I breathed.

“I would like that,” Kansuke answered. His thumb brushed against my clit. He was gentle, I believed in deference to my sensitivity.

We didn’t quite make it to together, but we were close. Just as I was getting desperate, I heard Kansuke gasp and felt his arm go rigid beneath my cheek. His cock pulsed in my hand and then his come was in my fingers and on my back, _hot_ , and his shuddering breath behind my head made me feel so good I had to close my eyes again. I hissed at the heat, loving that he had let me do this, loving that he had let go enough to do this.

I expected he would stop, but Kansuke continued to work me just as he had before. Gently but insistently, two fingers in me now as his thumb brushed my clit and my folds around those fingers. It was so erotic my pleasure jumped a notch, closer to that wonderful peak of a second orgasm.

And then he took me over, pressing me back to him with both of his hands, softening cock smearing his still warm come against my back as I arched for him and came, his name a whimper tumbling from my teeth.

When I had well and truly come down, Kansuke slipped his fingers out of me, so fast I barely had time to register the movement. But I could feel the absence of him more acutely than I could the sticky thread that fell on my side as he moved his hand.

“Hmm,” he said curiously, and I heard and felt his breaths through his nose. When he put his hand back on the flare of my hip, it was no longer sticky. My toes curled at the implication. I brought my own hand forward to my mouth, curious.

His essence had cooled, but it had been so hot to begin with it was close to the temperature of my skin. I had never tasted a man before… I wanted to now. It was savory. Thick, and a bit bitter. I told him so and after another thoughtful moment, he thanked me.

“May I hold you here awhile?” Kansuke asked.

“I suppose you can try,” I said, but it ended around a yawn so I failed to imitate his earlier tone yet again. He chuckled anyway. I tucked myself back against every part of him I could reach. His hand, a perfect match to the temperature of my own skin, came to rest on my ribs.

“Thank you, Meiri,” he whispered.

“Thank _you_ ,” I replied, and I wanted to stay awake and talk to him and cherish this time more, but I could not. Even the realization that the sweat on his arm _did_ have a smell, _what was that…?_ was blanketed by comfortable blackness as I closed my eyes, and slept.

* * *

I woke again, to the feeling of my back being patted dry with a cloth. I flexed minutely, recognizing the feeling of being clean. Sadness tinged my awareness. He was preparing to leave.

“I am going to put a small dose of sedative in your bloodstream. It will help you return to sleep but the drug is not so strong that you’ll struggle to wake in the morning. Yes?”

“I’m not sure I need the help. You could stay here for the rest of the night,” I ventured, daring to reach back for his hand.

The quietest chuckle at my hair, the lightest pressure around me. He was again like a wisp of a presence despite the solidity of his body behind me.

“I am going in a few moments.” His voice was warm. Comfortable.

“Is this the going when you’ll be gone for some time?” _I wish you could stay._

“Yes,” he answered. He rubbed one of his hands down my arm, the skin of his palms providing a tender scratch that gave me fresh goosebumps. 

“It won’t make me forget tonight, will it?”

“No,” Kansuke said immediately. That indulgent smile was back on his face, I could hear it. “I wouldn’t want that,” he added more quietly. He pulled a stray lock of hair behind my ear and kissed the curve gently. 

_Oh, a part of me is going with you, Yamamoto Kansuke. I hope a part of you is staying with me._

I hummed, careful to keep the sound thoughtful and not affirming. “First, may I do two things? Neither will take long.”

I felt him nod, his cheek rubbing the back of my head. I turned in his arms, our skin pliant and easy against each other. As my cheek rested on his chest I wished, desperately, that he could stay. But I believed him when he said he would go. I did not think he would take a token and I had no clothes that were suitable to offer him.

I peeked up at him.

“I would like to look into your eyes for just a moment. And I want to leave a mark on your skin. A love bite. May I?”

It was the third time I’d ever visibly startled him. When his face relaxed, he held my eyes with his own and it was comfortable, somehow, to look straight into him. Plums, sunset, my mother’s best kimono. They were all close but not precisely the color of his eyes. Purple in the darkness now, and I would remember their purple in the candlelight of Shingen's room and the sun of the garden, too.

After a moment, he nodded, but specified “The mark… somewhere unlikely to be noticed by others.”

I nodded, too. Touched the slight swell of his chest. His heart beat steadily below my fingertips.

“I would like it to be somewhere you can see, though. Here?”

The slightest, slightest twitch of his mouth, a slow blink, a softening of his eyes and jaw. This was his smile. I would remember it all of my days. “You may try,” he said, permission without challenge.

I set to work, a gentle kiss replacing my fingers before I sucked on the skin. Kansuke’s fingers threaded through the hair at the back of my head, keeping me there. I was happy to stay. When he breathed, his chest pushed toward my effort and I struggled with my own heart. I could not clutch this man forever, could not even keep him in my arms until morning. I did not regret what we had done but wondered if perhaps I should have just held him for the time instead.

When I pulled away to assess my work, he looked, too. He touched the small crimson mark, then used his hand to tilt my chin toward him. He kissed me firmly.

It was the first night we had kissed, and already this was goodbye.

He slipped away, pulling the bedding down behind him. Considerate man. His skin, that color I couldn’t name, beckoned me. But I stayed where I was.

“I give my consent. To the drug,” I said softly. He turned faster than I thought was possible and there was a thin sting behind my ear, and then the press of one of his fingers. It was comforting. I leaned into his touch.

“Be happy. Try to stay safe. Please.” Kansuke’s whispered request against my cheek was gentle. “You should not wait for me.”

“I know,” I said sadly, feeling tired in so many ways. “I will try. I’ll keep busy here. But I will hold on to my thoughts of you for as long as I can.”

He huffed out a small laugh. The sound and the sedative both worked magic on me, and my drowsiness began to take me back under.

“Try. To live. Please. I think you are so wonderful,” I murmured, the pull of sleep too strong to resist. 

I think he kissed my forehead, and I think he murmured something against my skin, but to this day I have never been sure if those thoughts are memory or dream.

* * *

 

Kansuke did not return. Eventually I learned what happened to him, that in the battle he left for he protected Takeda Shingen, and was the one to get him out. The Sanada warrior, too. Now I am much older and the three of them are long dead. These thoughts are lonely. Lonely for me, lonely for them. Everyone would have prospered under the Takeda… but Shingen is gone, and would not have lasted much longer than he did, sadly. The Tokugawa are in charge now. Sooner than later—probably sooner—it will be another clan.

Before the razing of Tsutsujigasaki, when it still seemed possible that the Takeda could rally, I went to Kansuke’s room. There was nothing identifying to be found within it. I cried in his bedding. I took a small packet of herbs I did not recognize from a chest of drawers, and a richly embroidered haori I never saw him wear.

As we set the palace aflame, I knew the last whispers of him were going up in smoke. Traces of me did, too. Traces of so many people and our cheerful, busy lives there. It was such a desperate day, when the castle burned.

I knew even as I asked Kansuke to come to my room there was a chance he would not. And I knew even if he did that he might not come back to me after. I let myself dream but kept my wishes dreams, not hopes. Still, I was deeply saddened. I wonder how he felt as he died. I wonder how it happened— he was so very quick, so very sure of his body. I wonder if he looked at the mark he let me make. I don’t think our time together meant little to him or that he let me make that mark just for me. But I wonder if he thought of me. Before the end. At the end.

I thought of him. Often. Before and after I learned what happened. Sometimes he was in my dreams, free with his little smiles, holding me. Lovely dreams.

When Shingen forced the maids to abandon service and return to their families, I bartered the fine haori for safe passage into a western province. The packet of herbs is in my own chest of drawers, now. I still don’t know what they are. Their smell has grown faint.

The first time I saw cinnamon quills, I smelled the apple and mint of Kansuke’s breath instead of their own sharp, sweet smell. When I make soba or use fresh miso paste, when I am near a forest of young trees, when dusk turns the world purple; I have the colors of him then. I rub the fingers of one hand together, trying to replicate or recall the unparalleled smoothness of his skin. I say a prayer for the peace his soul deserves.

My time in this life is almost done. With my remaining days, all I can do is try.

**Author's Note:**

> I thought about writing this as Shingen's MC choosing to spend intimate time with Kansuke, but after playing his route to completion (!) I couldn't bring myself to do it. This character, Meiri, is not romantically interested in Shingen (beyond what any woman vaguely interested in men feels for Shingen 'cause let's be real: UNF). She may or may not have slept with him. YOU DECIDE, gentle reader! 
> 
> This is sad-- this part of Shingen's route, and the character of Kansuke are sad. But very well done. Really perfect to read as fall hit where I live! All kinds of mood. 
> 
> I really wanted to write something where a female is in touch with her sexual desire from the get-go. I hope this feels natural and reads okay. 
> 
> Xoxo!


End file.
